9 Palmetto Potters

Previous UnitUnit 9  > Next Unit

Move your mouse over the image and pause on things to see information 'pop ups' (blue shapes). Click for more when the hand icon appears (red shapes). This illustration has 19 red shapes and 7 blue shapes - can you find them all? The answers can be found here - don't cheat!



Reed used to decorate the rim of a small bowl
Crushed conch shell temper for adding to raw clay
Raw clay being kneaded and mixed with conch temper
Raw clay
New pots dried and ready for firing
New griddle drying
New pot drying
Water for clay smoothing
Smoothing a coiled clay pot
Firewood ready for the next firing
Feathers of a Bahamian parrot
Pottery firing circle with broken sherds
Shell beads
Shell beads
Shell beads
Body painting
Body painting
Body painting
Body painting
Body painting
Body painting
Body painting
Body painting
Canoe
Canoe
Woven mats

Palmetto Potters

Two sisters take advantage of the cool morning to work on a set of new pottery bowls. The woman on the right uses the end of a thin reed to decorate the rim edge of a finished, small bowl while her sister, at centre, is working to smooth a large coiled vessel. Her daughter sits next to her, kneading the dense clay and adding burnt shell to the mixture to make the unique paste that distinguishes the pottery of The Bahamas, known today as Palmetto Ware.

A set of freshly made bowls and a cassava griddle lie on mats and in basketry frames – the patterns from their weave will be impressed into the ceramic bases as a permanent record of these fragile, organic arts that do not survive the passage of time (unlike ceramics).

Behind them is a pile of firewood ready for the next stage in the manufacturing process: the firing of the ceramics to harden the clay and make the vessels useable – but with storm clouds gathering on the distant horizon, the firing may need to be postponed until the afternoon.
 

Worksheets

Unit 9a: Potters, all (JPG, 1 MB)

Unit 9b: Pottery Decorator ​​​​​​​(JPG, 0.8 MB)

Unit 9c: Pottery Smoother ​​​​​​​(JPG, 0.8 MB)

Unit 9d: Clay Kneader ​​​​​​​(JPG, 0.8 MB)